Terminal

End Of The Line

Terminal
Ireland/UK/Hong Kong/Hungary/USA 2018
Directed by Vaughn Stein
Arrow Films Blu Ray Zone B

Well this could have been a lot better... I’m just not sure how because it manages to press a lot of the right buttons while still seeming to be completely dull, somehow.

Terminal is a movie I saw trailered back in 2018 at my local cinema and the trailer looked pretty intriguing so... I waited and I waited and... it just didn’t arrive. Turns out... and I only just recently found this out... it only played for a limited engagement at the Prince Charles cinema in London. I don’t know why since it has lots of the kind of elements modern cinema audiences like to see, not least a star studded cast with such luminaries as Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Michael Myers. However, it wasn’t until I spotted it on the bargain bucket racks at Fopp for a fiver that I realised that it had ‘come and gone’, as it were.

So, I’ve remedied that situation now and, frankly, I wish I had seen it at the cinema so I would have known not to buy a copy. The problem I have with conveying just how disappointed with it I was, however, is that it’s one of those movies that has so many great things going for it and it still, somehow, manages to fail at holding the interest throughout. Trying to pin down just why that is, though, is something I can only take a less than educated guess on. Given the obvious talent in front of and behind the camera, it seems very hard to manage to make a film like this fail on some level.

Now, I’ve gone on record saying I don’t like gangster movies and it would be true to say that most of the characters that inhabit this bizarre underworld are not people I could ever sympathise with so... I dunno that could be it, I guess. That does seem too obvious an excuse though, especially since I quite like a lot of the main players performing in the film.

Okay... so let’s start with what you are going to realise as soon as you spin the film up. It’s honestly one of the most gorgeous looking films you are going to see... both in terms of the constantly contrasted, neon coloured lighting which should contradict but perpetuates the solid, film noir atmosphere from the picture. I knew I was going to be in for a good ride visually from very early on, where the director has a third of a shot on the left lit with a green alleyway and everything else black. Then a door opens on the right so that the frame is lit in the opposite third with a totally different colour with another character different to the one who was previously in the left hand third of the frame. So we have a frame split into three colours... if you count the middle, black section as a colour... and the effect is quite beautiful...

And the whole film is like this. It’s a visually rich feast for the eyes and, frankly, this in itself should be more than enough for me. Couple this with some nicely written dialogue involving some sharp and witty conversations performed by actors who really know what they are doing, well... by 20 minutes in my mind should have been well engaged with the content.

Alas, the convoluted story, while not exactly that surprising or unfathomable, doesn’t really hold the interest in its execution and, I have to wonder if this is because of some kind of pacing issue, perhaps with the way the film was edited, as to why I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I mean, it’s an hour and a half movie but, honestly, it feels like three hours.

One of the problems I can put my finger on is the lack of surprise on certain of the many ‘twist reveals’ in the film. For instance, the identity of a Mr. Big villain character is so obvious that, when the person took some prosthetics and make-up off near the end, rather than be surprised I was thinking that, actually, with all the make up effects removed the actor looked less like what the actor usually looks like than when he was in disguise. So no real reveal there, then. Especially when, by the time that character reveal is seen on screen, pretty much all the other candidates viable as the identity of this key role are pretty much dead.

Similarly, when another main character is revealed to be playing... how can I put this... a dual role, it really is no surprise. There have been at least two very telling moments where this is kind of hinted at earlier in the film and the choices are... either the editing of the chronology of the movie is really bad and some stupid mistakes were made or... there’s more than one of that character, so to speak. So, yeah, no surprises there, either, I’m afraid.

What was surprising, actually, was the motivation behind the actions of this dual role, as revealed in the last twenty minutes or so of the film in a... it has to be said... thoroughly nasty revenge movie kind of denouement. The real reason for the main protagonist(s) actions throughout the film are not that easy to predict, I would have to say although, by this point in the film, it does seem to be a case of too little, too late. At least in terms of finally wringing out any kind of entertainment value from the script. It’s also, possibly, a little hard to watch for the more squeamish audience members, even though the final... shall we say ‘blow’... is actually off camera and implied.

And that’s me done with Terminal, I guess. A beautiful piece of eye candy with some cracking dialogue, smart performances and, in all honesty, not much going for it despite all of these factors. I know this is a short review but I really have nothing much more to say about this one. If you are a viewer who loves the visual aesthetics of cinema then... you probably need to check this out for just the shot design alone. I can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone else though because, somehow, it’s just plain dull and fails to hold the interest. Not one I’d happily sit through again.